by Serena Kent
A muffled thump came from deep in the building. Penelope stopped. She tiptoed to the door. Peeped around the edge. In the distant hall, a shaft of light danced from a torch. It was moving towards her.
She stepped quietly back into the room, into its far recesses, and crouched down behind some old boxes. It would not have hidden her for seconds in the normal light, but in the gloom it might just work.
Footsteps outside the door heralded the entrance of a large figure, probably male, Penelope judged from the weight of the footsteps. Or a particularly hefty nun. There was a pause, and then a riffling of papers. She guessed that the documents on the table were being collected—that was why the door was still open. After a moment, the light from the torch swung erratically around the room and then disappeared as the door was closed. Retreating footsteps echoed along the corridor, and finally in the distance a door was slammed shut and bolted.
Heart pounding, Penelope waited for some time before daring to emerge from behind the boxes. It occurred to her that she did not want to be locked in for the night in a place like this. She had to find a way out, unseen.
Hurrying back to the entrance, she found the door was, as she had feared, locked and unmovable. Feeling her way with her hands, she hugged the walls until she found another door at the far end. It opened with a loud creak.
She found herself in a large hall decked with long tables and benches. The refectory, perhaps. On the far side was another door through which light poured more strongly into the room. She scurried over, and found herself in an old kitchen. There were no shutters on the windows here, and several had broken panes of glass.
Beyond the windows lay a jungle. It may have once been a kitchen garden, but now it reminded Penelope of the state of her own garden when she first arrived. The back door looked weak and already had a few windowpanes missing. When Penelope gave it a large kick with her left walking boot, the wood gave way immediately. After a few more blows the door hung drunkenly from one hinge, allowing egress into the back garden.
Pushing through the shoulder-high grass interspersed with old uncut vines and lavender, she followed a high brick wall, until eventually a wooden gate to the outside world presented itself. She breathed a profound sigh of relief. It was as decrepit as everything else, and gave way quick under her weight—rather too quickly, in fact. But she was at least out of the building and could make out a path returning to the road.
* * *
A GENTLE breeze ruffled the large plane trees standing over Le Chant d’Eau as Penelope stopped the car. She breathed in deeply and willed herself to relax before pulling out her phone. Had the scan even worked? That was the trouble with apps—they were either too easy to be true, or ridiculously complicated for those who had never played computer games.
The scanned document was fairly hazy, and it was unfortunate that she had not managed to scan more, but the page she had managed to capture gave her a jolt.
PROJET DE CONTRAT
Entre
Investissements Paris-Midi
[BdeR]
[LM]
et
Monsieur Pierre Xavier Louchard
Monsieur Manuel Alain Avore
[Date xx]
A contract—a draft agreement? Between BdeR and LM and her grumpy neighbour and a recently murdered man? LM—Laurent Millais? The plot was most definitely thickening.
16
PENELOPE SLAMMED THE CAR DOOR behind her. Relief at being home was heightened by a new sense of space. The atmosphere at Le Chant d’Eau seemed lighter somehow, despite her pounding heart.
It took a while to work out what it was. When she opened the back door to the terrace, she realised that while she was gone, M. Charpet had finally cut all the grass. There was now a neat park outside the house. The courtyard had been cleared. Some of the ivy had been stripped off the house, revealing gorgeous mellow stone. The place actually looked lived-in. A small tear made its way down Penelope’s cheek.
About twenty minutes later M. Charpet appeared over the horizon on a sit-on motorised mower. It was all Penelope could do not to fling herself in its path and jump up to hug him.
The two had not yet reached that stage of familiarity, though. Penelope shook his hand vigorously when he appeared on the kitchen doorstep later to say that he had finished for the day. The hand was hard and scuffed as stone. “Merci, monsieur, merci bien!” she repeated several times, knowing she was overdoing it but unable to stop herself.
She owed a debt to Clémence Valencourt as well. No matter how much of an enigma the woman was, with her kindness alternating with haughtiness, and the way she had of wrong-footing Penelope, her choice of gardener had been an inspired one. There was a dependable stubbornness about the man facing her that mirrored the granite crags of the surrounding mountains, weathered by countless days of mistral and rain. Everything was going to be all right.
“À demain!”
See you tomorrow! That meant more progress! “À demain, M. Charpet,” she replied, still shaking his hand. “La transformation—c’est magnifique!”
Was there a scarcely perceptible blush under that olive skin? He extricated himself, took the compliment, and left.
In the evening sun, Penelope gazed around her property with a feeling of immense satisfaction. She made herself a cup of tea and sat outside ruminating about the events of the past few days, losing herself in the view as the lights started to come on across the valley. On the drive back she had wondered whether she would feel lonely now that Frankie had left, but all she felt was tired and curiously happy.
In the corner of the beamed sitting room lay the large carrying case, scuffed and showing its age.
She had once been a good cellist. A very good cellist, in fact. Good enough to reach the stage where constant practice was needed to maintain the standards she had attained. At school and university she had won several prizes for her playing, and at one point thought seriously about it as a career. But when the ruthless world of professional music opened up to her with an audition at the Royal Academy of Music, and she listened to fellow applicants play, she realised that, good as she was, she would never reach the heights required. She decided to remain a talented amateur, and went to secretarial school. The plan was to work in music or concert administration, but that didn’t happen either after she met David. Over the years the case was opened less frequently, and eventually she gave up completely.
That was nearly twenty years ago, she mused, as she pulled the case from the corner and unclipped the rusting locks. But she still felt the thrill of anticipation as it opened to reveal the golden-brown cello, resting on its red velvet, as perfect as the day she had been given it by her father on her eighteenth birthday. She sat down on the chair and pulled the instrument to her. Tightening the bow, rubbing the rosin up and down the taut horsehair, tuning the strings, it was all part of an elaborate ritual prior to music making, and had to be done in order. It calmed the temperament, and left her in the right state of mind.
She felt quite nervous as she picked up the bow. She had no idea how far her technique had fallen in the years of lassitude, and silently cursed at the life that had robbed her of the chance to keep it going. She wasn’t quite sure whether she would remember the pieces once known by heart. Eyes closed, she drew the bow across the strings for the first time in decades.
The next hour was punctuated by grunts of dissatisfaction, swearing, and the occasional melody. Her fingers ached from the unaccustomed positions, her attempts made worse by the knowledge of how proficient she had once been. She could still hear in her head how it should sound, but the results emanating from the instrument fell far short. Still, when she paused, she felt a deep sense of pleasure. She vowed to return to a strict practice regime. The magic was still there.
She played on.
Two hours later, she sat in a near trance by the open window, still almost hearing echoes of the well-loved Mendelssohn sonata floating on the night air. As ever, the music had not only soothed h
er mind but connected her to the best part of her being. She could think clearly. How she had missed this!
Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so selfless in her marriage. Perhaps then Lena and Justin wouldn’t have taken her so much for granted. Too late for all that now, but it brought it home to her that now Frankie had left, she was on her own. She was going to have to draw on her own inner resources to make a go of living alone in St Merlot.
But it had not been an auspicious start.
What was really going on here? Why did Clémence Valencourt keep turning up? Was it just her affair with the mayor? And if not, were her actions suspect, or was she just complicit—especially if the LM on the draft contract was indeed Laurent Millais? Did the contract have any bearing on Avore’s death? Had Clémence played Penelope into buying Le Chant d’Eau because she was a foreigner, and could almost be guaranteed not to understand whatever was going on? Penelope frowned. It remained to be seen if they really were on the same side.
Then there was the alluring mayor. What did he know that he was keeping from her? He had been so sure that it was Manuel Avore who had threatened her on the path her first evening—but what if he was wrong? Or worse, had intentionally misled her? No one, not even the chief of police, seemed interested in the crucial fact that the man on the path and the man in the pool could not possibly both have been Manuel Avore.
Were Laurent Millais and Clémence in it together, whatever it was? Where was her elusive husband—and what could possibly involve them that would necessitate bumping off a disagreeable old neighbour?
17
MIST HUNG LOW OVER THE blue hills the next morning, a first intimation that summer would not last forever. Penelope greeted M. Charpet and a young lad called Olivier who arrived with him. Olivier fetched ladders from the roof of his van and immediately resumed work pulling ivy from walls, Charpet directing operations.
Penelope would have liked to ask Charpet some questions about Clémence Valencourt and the mayor, but decided she didn’t know him well enough. It could do more harm than good. She left them to it and drove down to Apt to buy a serious amount of cleaning equipment, some Polyfilla and white paint, and a powerful vacuum cleaner. When she returned, the main house and the outbuildings were completely surrounded by tangled piles of ivy.
Stripped bare, the outbuildings were so much prettier than Penelope had ever imagined. The largest comprised what must surely once have been stables or a group of barns, linked, but with roofs of different heights, and lovely arched doorways. She heard Frankie’s voice in her head—Gîte, gîte, gîte!—and now she could see what she meant. They would make perfect small holiday lets, if she ever decided to go down that road. The other, a small barn, would be ideal as a studio. If the light was right, perhaps for some painting—or even (Penelope felt her heart flutter) a warm and inviting music room. There were more marvels in the garden, too. The orchard already looked twice the size it had when she left.
On the wall of the kitchen terrace sat a little pile of small pink plums. They felt firm, but when she tried one, it was deliciously sweet. She took it as a sign, this thoughtful gift from M. Charpet and the orchard.
The afternoon passed in backbreaking work to remove the layers of dust that had accumulated over the years. The more Penelope looked, the more she noticed the hideous cobwebs, and a large and varied number of insects both alive and dead. But she also saw the rooms from different angles, and appreciated their generous proportions. In the sitting room the ceiling sloped upwards to at least eighteen feet in height. Its beams, inset with traditional lath and plaster, would be stunning when painted white. The red tiles on the floor could be brought back to life with a professional polishing machine.
She was just thinking that the huge stone mantelpiece could preside over a real wood fire in winter when there was a knock at the window. Didier Picaud the electrician beamed his full-wattage smile and waved. He was wearing a T-shirt with the legend “I (heart) London” under a picture of a red double-decker bus. Penelope motioned for him to go to the back door. “Bonjour, M. Picaud,” she said, ushering him into the kitchen. “Have you come to start the rewiring?” It seemed a bit late in the day.
“Bonjour, madame. Please call me Didier. No . . . this is not work. I would like to ask you something very important.” His alert brown eyes held hers, then looked away, as if he was nervous.
“Of course, what is it?”
“Thank you, madame.” He raked a hand through his mad crinkly hair. Despite the big smile, he was a bit awkward and geeky, she realised. “You see, I love to speak English, madame. And you are an English person. The only one in this village.”
Penelope was extraordinarily glad to hear it. “You want me to talk to you in English, yes?”
He nodded. “I love all the things English. The Beatles, heavy metal, the Queen.” Then he looked deadly serious. “Jams Pond.”
“Jams Pond?”
He struck a pose and pointed his fingers at her, as if aiming a pistol. “Pond. Jams Pond. Zero zero seven!”
“Ah! Right you are, James Bond.”
“Oui. I watch the movies in English.”
“Films.”
“Eh?”
“Movies are American. The British watch films.”
“Thank you, madame. Already you are helping me. I love the English things. Rrroger Moorrre. Sean Connery. Dark Zide of ze Moon.”
“Aaah, Pink Floyd.” Penelope thought back to her school days, grimacing at the memories of dark, sweaty parties where the group’s albums were invariably played as sound tracks for making out.
“And I have Em.”
“Em?”
Didier whistled. A large black Labrador pushed round the kitchen door, tail whirring. She was an adorable creature.
“Isn’t she a darling! Look at those melting chocolate eyes!”
Didier gave his dog a stroke. “Her name is Shoo-dee, but I call her Em.”
“Shoo-dee . . . Judi! After Judi Dench. M!” Penelope got it, much to Didier’s delight.
“She is very intelligent. Bye-bye!” he ordered, looking at his dog. M raised her front paw and waved it in a regal circle.
Penelope giggled.
“I like everything English, dogs including,” said Didier.
Penelope acknowledged his good taste, and threw out a true test. “Cup of tea?”
“Delicious.”
“I’ll put the kettle on, and let’s have a chat, then,” said Penelope.
There was no stopping him after that. Didier rattled off the titles of Pink Floyd numbers that lurked in the dark recesses of Penelope’s memory. He was certainly a great fan. He told her about going to London when he was twenty-one, and a trip to Liverpool to see the Cavern Club where the Beatles used to play. His English was really pretty good.
It was a while before Penelope managed to steer him towards a more fruitful subject. “What were they like, the previous owners of this house?”
“They were nice people. I can’t say I saw them very often, as they never spent so much time here. They preferred to stay in Lyon.”
“I thought they wanted to retire here. But they obviously never did the renovations the house needed. Why was that?”
Didier shrugged. “Perhaps they did not have the money. Renovations are always more expensive than you expect.”
“That’s true.”
“I felt a bit sorry for them. They were quite old, and maybe they realised too late that this project they had taken on was too serious for them. Jaguar! Aston Martin!” he said, changing the subject abruptly. “Range Rover! Can I look at your car? It is so English! Please to sit inside it?”
“If you like.”
Eventually, after a lengthy discussion on the merits of Aston Martin versus Lotus as the seminal Bond vehicle, Didier finished the last of his cold cup of tea and stood up.
“Madame, I must leave now, but I will return to start the rewiring soon.”
Penelope shook him warmly by the hand. “Anytime you wa
nt to learn some more English, just call.”
“It would be my pleasure. And maybe you would like to practise your French too? If you like, you could come to a pétanque match in the village? I am playing on Sunday evening. St Merlot against Rustrel.”
“That would be wonderful.” Penelope felt quite touched.
It was still hot and bright when Didier and M departed. The dog gave a queenly wave goodbye.
* * *
PENELOPE DUG out some sturdy shoes and wandered outside. A late afternoon walk was just what she needed. She set off down the track in the opposite direction to the main road and sauntered along, immersed in the smell of wild thyme and the ever-present fidgeting of the cicadas. Birds wheeled overhead, and butterflies fluttered.
In no time at all, she was passing the entrance to Pierre Louchard’s property. And there he was.
She waved. “Bonjour, monsieur!”
“Bonjour, madame,” replied M. Louchard without any notable enthusiasm. He was carrying a large rifle under one arm, and an oily cloth in his hand.
Trying her best in French, she explained she was taking a walk, just to explore the countryside.
The farmer grimaced. “Pourquoi?”
Why? “Il fait très beau, monsieur.”
The weather was indeed fine, he agreed, but he thought it would rain later. Penelope looked up at the deep cloudless blue above and smiled. She’d noticed that weather forecasts in La Provence often predicted clouds when all that happened was that the sun went in for half an hour. In a place where it shone reliably for so many months of the year, the locals seemed to take clouds as a personal affront.
“Faites attention à la chasse!”
“La chasse?”
He stroked his gleaming rifle, raised it to his shoulder, and mimed firing in the air.
“Hunters! Oui, je comprends.” Penelope explained that she was going to stick to the paths. It may not have come out quite as well in French as she’d hoped, but she was sure he got the gist.